For as long as man has utilized floor coverings in his dwelling house, he has had the problem of maintaining the floor coverings in a clean condition. Whereas, carpets have been improved, changed and modified over the course of centuries, the problem of preventing the rugs from spotting and soiling has never been overcome. Accordingly, it has always been necessary to clean rugs and carpets by one of many processes available to the rug or carpet owner. As late as the 1940's and '50's, it was necessary to hand scrub home carpets, utilizing mild detergent solutions. As technology improved, devices were found for applying soap solutions and detergent solutions to rugs.
A distinct improvement over earlier processes was the use of steam to lift and clean the dirt from the carpet or rug. The various steam cleaning processes, while indeed beneficial are relatively time consuming and require direct hook-up to a source of steam, and thus, can only be utilized in low level buildings, as it is generally either impractical or unsafe to run steam lines from the source of steam up many flights of stairs to either apartments or high level offices in multi-story buildings. Another drawback with the use of steam for cleaning carpets, is the fact that a great deal of humidity is created in the cleansed rooms. A common corrective measure comprises maintaining heat in the rooms during periods of non-occupancy, but this extra heating is wasteful of energy resources. Another problem with excess humidity, is the potential of damage to various types of items in the cleansed area. Thus, care should be taken with rare books and other items that could suffer moisture damage.
As technology continued to advance, automatic applicating machines for detergents were invented, but such methods of rug cleaning suffer from the face that residual detergent tends to gather and remain in the interstices of the fibers of the rug; if not removed, this residual detergent may cause undesirable discoloration of the carpet.
The instant process is an improvement on both the machine shampoo and the steam cleaning processes for the cleansing of rugs and carpets. The instant technique employs a new composition to clean rugs and carpets by electrostatic action in significantly shorter periods of time than are required by the use of prior art techniques.